Scars
by Aracertariel
Summary: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.
1. Harry

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

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 **Harry**

Harry is used to being defined by his scar. As a baby it marked him as equal to the Dark Lord. From eleven on it marked the wizarding world's expectations of him – the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Conquered, the only hope against Voldemort, the Chosen One, the leader of the Golden Trio. (Harry objects to that last one most of all. Hermione was _clearly_ the brains of the operation.)

Harry never got used to people staring in wide eyed wonder at the lightning bolt marring his forehead. He never got used to the way it reminded him of his parents' death and of the war.

But he learned to ignore it. And that was nearly enough.


	2. Ron

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

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 **Ron**

Ron doesn't talk about the scars, and Harry and Hermione haven't ever asked. He supposes that there was too much else going on for it to be a real priority in their minds – surviving the ministry (only barely in Hermione's case), Sirius' death, Dumbledore revealing the prophecy.

All told, they probably don't even know about them. Sometimes Ron doubts they're actually there. A lot of that night is fuzzy, and after the brain-things it got even fuzzier.

But real or not, he can see the marks of their tentacles on his arms. When he looks at them he sees them again – those thoughts carving deep under his skin.


	3. Hermione

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

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 **Hermione**

Hermione earned her fair share of scars in her childhood. There's the thin line in her hair from falling out of a tree and splitting her scalp open – lots of blood and five stitches and proving she could _too_ climb higher. There's the curving dent on her knee from a bike accident when she was learning to ride and refused to use training wheels – which were for babies, which she _wasn't_. There are countless other tiny, barely noticeable ones from kitten claws and paper cuts and "I can do it _myself_!" These scars don't bother her. They're a normal part of living through a muggle childhood without magical remedies to erase every bump and scrape.

It's the scars she got in the wizarding world that make her feel broken and helpless – that hateful word carved into her arm, where she can't even brush her teeth without seeing it. She covers it up around family or friends or whenever she's just on her own. It makes her feel weak, makes the boys feel guilty, and that isn't what she wants for herself or for them.

But Hermione is clever enough to know that scars have power, and strong enough to use it. She wears it in the open when she has to deal with politicians and law makers and bigots and weak, incompetent bosses who wish she would just go with the flow and stop trying to _change_ things.

Hermione uses her scars as a weapon. She uses them to remind them that she is strong enough to withstand torture from Bellatrix Lestrange, powerful enough to help defeat Voldemort. She uses them to demand respect. And she gets it.


	4. Neville

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

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 **Neville**

It's rare in the wizarding world for an injury to be so bad or untended so long that it scars, but Neville has several. He wears them with pride.

Neville's scars are proof – proof that he lived up to his parents' legacy and his grandmother's expectations, proof that he stood strong against evil and injustice, proof that he protected the other students in that last dark year of the war.

They are proof that he was brave enough for Gryffindor after all.


	5. George

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

I've had a bad day, so I posted up two chapters. Also because Nevile's feels pretty short compared to the others. So if you missed Nevil's chapter, be sure to go back and catch it.

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 **George**

George has yet to run out of ear puns. He gets horrified stares from time to time because of his scar, like he's Mad Eye Moody or something. He treats the whole thing like a big joke because, honestly, it's not the missing ear that bothers him.

The other scar hurts worse. The absence pains him worse than any missing limb could. It's worse than the confounded, frustrating _itching_ he sometimes gets where his ear used to be.

The tender, raw, _aching_ of his divided soul still takes him by surprise some days. Some days George wonders if he will ever stop turning around, expecting Fred to still be there beside him.


	6. Luna

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. I'm open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review. I'll post what I've got as I have time.

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 **Luna**

Luna's scars are invisible. They begin accumulating long before she came to Hogwarts, starting with her mother's death. They continue on, cut by the sharp words and cruel pranks of her schoolmates. She is like a lightning-struck tree - stretching around the wounds, making sure they cannot impede her growth.

By the time the Death Eaters take her, Luna is so covered in scars that she can barely feel the new wounds. They are armor. And so Luna survives, and helps her fellow hostages, and when the time comes she escapes with them. In the end, she fights side by side with her friends.

Beside her friends, Luna's scars begin to fade.


	7. Draco

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. So far I have chapters written up for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, George, Ginny, Luna, and Draco. This is the last one that I've got, so I'm going to mark the story complete. However, I'm still open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review.

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 **Draco**

Draco has plenty of scars from the war, both physical and psychological. That's not even mentioning the damage done to his social standing and future political career. But he survived, and that's more than he had dared to hope for some days.

His favorite scar is the bleached patch of skin, the size of his hand, stretching across his inner left forearm.

With the Dark Lord's death, the magic had faded completely from the mark, and the mark on his arm had faded in turn. Faded, but not disappeared. And Draco wanted it gone. He wanted no part of what that man stood for. Not anymore.

Then he had learned of a muggle method for removing tattoos. And without the magic in it, that was all the mark was.

The process was long and costly and painful (though nowhere near as bad as one of Aunt Bella's Cruciatus Curses).

But it was worth it. The mark was gone.

Draco could live with the scar.


	8. Fleur

AN: This is a series of short (mostly drabbly) fics reflecting on scars left by the war. Here is an unexpected new chapter! I'm still open to suggestions for more - just leave me a review.

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 **Fleur**

Fleur's skin is flawless. Others who were more visibly damaged by the war sometimes sneer, assuming that she had hidden at home, waiting for others to fight it out. She knows better, and is above retaliation. (Mostly. She has bad days too.)

Fleur's scars are marked not on her body, but on the people she loves.

They are marked in the way her precious little sister wakes screaming in the night from dreams of happiness shattered by flashes of colored light. They are marked in the way Gabrielle hems her school uniform a little too high, a little too short, because she had tripped over the long dress at Fleur's reception – tripped and fell and nearly been killed, and cannot now wear a skirt that falls past her knees without panicking, because what if she needs to _run_ again?

Fleur's scars are marked across her husband's face in a very literal way. They are marked in the way he craves red meat, and grows restless and snappish as the moon waxes.

They are marked every which way across his family, now also her own. They are marked in Fred's absence and George's broken smiles and half-sentences that no one finishes for him anymore. They are Ginny's dark silences and Molly and Arthur's tears. They are marked in the way Ron is no longer a child and Harry never was, and in Hermione's habit of wearing long sleeves.

She takes flowers to the little grave on the cliff. It is not the first time. She thanks the little elf for his sacrifice – for saving those children who had been friends and who became family.

When Fleur gives birth to her first child, it is in the little room in Shell Cottage where Hermione had recovered from being tortured. She cannot undo what was done, but this place is _hers_ , her home, and she can create better memories than the ones these walls have already witnessed.

She brings her little girl into the world surrounded by her family – Mother, Molly, Gabrielle, Ginny, and Hermione. Bill holds his daughter, wonder clear on his face. Fleur's expression is something sharp and triumphant. It is easier to see at this moment that she is descended from a magical creature, an embodiment of war and passion and fire – one which loves fiercely and with its whole being.

They name her Victoire. Victory. The war is over; the scars cannot defeat them.


End file.
